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<p>The government is committed to promoting and supporting the mental health of children,
young people and the school, college and university staff who support them.</p><p>School,
college and university staff cannot act as mental health experts, and they should
not try to diagnose conditions. However, it is important that they are able to identify
possible mental health problems, so they are able to put appropriate support in place.
It is up to schools and colleges to decide what training to offer their staff, but
we have put in place a range of training for them to draw on.</p><p>Training has been
particularly important to give schools confidence to deal with issues that will have
arisen during the COVID-19 outbreak. To ensure that staff are equipped to support
wellbeing as children and young people returned to schools and colleges, we made it
a central part of our guidance both on remote education and on the return to school.
We supported this with a range of training and materials, including webinars which
have been accessed by thousands of education staff. We have also accelerated training
on how to teach about mental health as part of the new relationships, sex and health
curriculum, so that all pupils can benefit from this long-term requirement.</p><p>To
provide further support during the autumn and spring terms the department has worked
with our partners, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Health Education
England, Public Health England and key voluntary sector organisations, to launch Wellbeing
for Education Return. This project, backed by £8 million, will train local experts
to provide additional training, advice and resources to schools and colleges, to help
support pupil and student wellbeing, resilience and recovery. It will give staff the
confidence to support pupils and students, their parents, carers and their own colleagues,
and know how and where to access appropriate specialist support where needed.</p><p>This
specific support is building on our longer-term activity to help support teacher knowledge.
As part of this, the government has successfully delivered on the 2017 commitment
of my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, to make mental health awareness training
available to all eligible secondary schools by March 2020. To help embed knowledge
and practice in schools, we are now in the process of developing a bespoke senior
mental health lead training programme. The training will equip senior mental health
leads with the knowledge to introduce or develop their whole school and college approach
to mental health, implement effective processes for ensuring pupils and students with
mental health problems receive appropriate support and to promote positive mental
health within the school or college so that it becomes a key part of how schools and
colleges operate. The knowledge requirements and expected outcomes for the training
closely align to Public Health England’s ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional
health and wellbeing. A whole school and college approach’, which is available here:<br><a
href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414908/Final_EHWB_draft_20_03_15.pdf"
target="_blank">https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414908/Final_EHWB_draft_20_03_15.pdf</a>.</p><p>We
also remain committed to our major joint green paper delivery programme with DHSC
and NHS England, including introducing new mental health support teams linked to schools
and colleges, and testing approaches to faster access to NHS specialist support.</p><p>We
also recognise the importance of supporting staff with their own mental health and
wellbeing. This is why we are funding a £95,000 pilot project with the Education Support
Partnership, to focus on leaders’ mental health, providing online peer-support and
telephone supervision from experts to around 250 school leaders. This is in addition
to funding of £45,000 we provided to Timewise, to provide practical support and resources
on flexible working, in light of new arrangements for schools responding to the COVID-19
outbreak.</p><p>It is up to higher education institutions to decide how to support
their students and what training to offer to staff. The government strongly supports
the University Mental Health Charter, which aims to drive up standards in promoting
student and staff mental health and wellbeing. We are also working closely with Universities
UK on embedding the Step Change: Mentally Healthy Universities framework, calling
on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority and take
a whole-institution approach, embedding it across all policies, cultures, curricula
and practice.</p>
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